Against All Odds
by Drachesoul
Summary: THIS IS A CRACKFIC! Richard Castle is approached by a woman who believes that something is going to go down at the National Dog Show and asks for his help. He knows that he can't do this alone. This requires a team. Hitter, Hacker, Grifter, Thief. Together alongside Ruby Lucas, Claudia Donovan, Rachel Berry and Kenzi, Castle formulates a plan to bring down a corrupt show dog owner.


**Let me start off by saying that this is a CRACK FIC! There is no set universe for the characters, and they all come from different shows. This story is something I came up with to divert my attention from writing my novel for Nano 13. But I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this. -Drachesoul**

"Okay, is everyone in place?" Richard Castle whispered into the ear mic. If everything went well today, he and his team would walk home with hundreds of thousands of dollars, all of it legal and ready to spend. Not that he needed any extra money, as being a best-selling author gave him all of the resources to live comfortably. But for his teammates, it would mean the world.

"Check. All's good down here in the sound booth, Castle. Computers are set up and we've got access to all of the wireless camera feeds."

"The two of us are getting ready to go on, sir."

"Roger that, writer dude. I am in place and waiting for the signal."

Castle nodded, and pleased with the direction things were going in, relaxed in his seat and propped his feet up. Being a celebrity like him had its perks, especially the private viewing box above the general seating. He could see everything and have complete privacy.

"All right guys, let's go win us a dog show."

XXX

Against All Odds

XXX

This entire thing started two weeks ago when Castle was approached by a middle-aged woman at one of his book signing events in Manhattan. She looked distraught and in need of help, so he invited her to dinner that night to talk to her.

"Thank you for meeting me, Mr. Castle," the woman said. "You can call me Westlake, Carole Westlake. I'm sorry to come to you, but there's been a crime that I would like for you to help solve."

Castle almost spit out his wine. "Ma'am, you do realize that I work with the police, right? If something's happened, you should contact them."

Ms. Westlake looked around frantically and lowered her voice to little more than a whisper. "I've done that already and the detective told me that without concrete evidence, there was nothing he could do. Please? You're my last hope."

Castle thought things over for a minute, "But why contact me? I'm just a writer."

Ms. Westlake tutted, "Have you seen the newspapers recently? The entire city knows of the good things you do with the NYPD. You and that Detective Beckett have been instrumental in solving some of the most difficult cases. I knew that you would be the right person for the job."

He sighed deeply and mulled things over. This woman _did_ seem to be in a bind, and he _was_ in the business of helping people. Since Beckett, Javier and Esposito were in the middle of a high-profile undercover case, he had been left to his own devices, and needless to say, he was getting a little stir-crazy without a case to solve.

"All right, you've got me interested. What exactly happened?"

Ms. Westlake's face brightened visibly and she reached into her purse to pull out a tablet. She double-clicked on a file and handed the tablet to Castle.

"A dog show?" he asked, confused. He watched as a line of dogs in all shapes and sizes paraded around in a circle, before being examined by a panel of well-dressed judges. He had nothing against dog shows, per say, but they were a bit to elegant for his tastes, much like the horseracing circuit and charity balls. Class just oozed out of these dogs and their handlers, and Castle wondered exactly how much they had spent grooming and breeding the perfect dog.

"There!" Ms. Westlake pointed out, "Do you see that dog?"

"Who?" Castle responded, and rewound the video. An elegant long-haired Irish Setter and his beautiful red-haired handler walked up to the panel of judges. "Wait, isn't that the dog who won Westminster last year?"

"Red Rover, yes," Ms. Westlake nodded, "A champion with a pristine bloodline and worth about a half-million dollars. He has won dozens of minor and major shows across the country and the world. Nobody has questioned his form and talent before, but I spotted something strange."

Now he was getting curious. A champion show dog with a dirty little secret? Things got stranger and stranger with every passing day. "What's so strange about a winning Irish Setter?"

Ms. Westlake pulled out a manila folder from her purse and rifled through its contents, before handing over a sheet of paper to him. "There are absolutely no records of this dog prior to two years ago. The registration lists Red Rover as a four-year-old male, but I can find nothing of his existence before 2011. His bloodline and registration all seem to check out, but with a dog of his stature and lineage, there should have been at least some indication of his competing in shows as a puppy."

"Wait, so you think Red Rover isn't a champion?"

"He's a champion all right, but if I'm trusting my gut judgment, I don't think Red Rover is the dog his papers claim he is. Kennel clubs have ridiculously high requirements in order to register a dog in their organization, not the least of which is documented proof of lineage. A dog can't even join unless _both_ of its parents are in the organization as well."

Castle whistled through his teeth, finally getting the seriousness of this woman's accusations. "If you're right and Red Rover is an ineligible dog, his owners could stand to lose all of that prize money and have their reputation dragged through the mud. They'd be ruined."

"Not to mentioned banned from ever competing again, regardless of their dogs. That means that they'd also lose out on other purses at competitions, and those can run in the tens of thousands of dollars."

"Red's handler isn't the owner of the dog, right?" Castle asked. She looked innocent as could be, a young college-aged woman that looked kind of like his daughter, Alexis. The last thing he wanted was to ruin her chances at being a popular dog handler.

"No, Red Rover is owned by this man," Ms. Westlake passed a picture to Castle. "An arrogant and some would say corrupt dog owner who has multiple dogs entering in every competition. He makes millions off of breeding champion dogs and training people to work with their own show dogs. But he never steps in the ring with the animals. That's why he hires handlers to basically take care of the dogs for him."

Castle put two and two together, "So he gets all the money and glory for being the owner of a champion without putting in any of the time and effort to get the job done."

"Precisely. And this man in particular is known for paying his employees very little and engaging in some less than practical training methods. I'm sure if he wasn't one of the powerhouse players in the show world, he'd be in jail for animal neglect."

"So what is it you want me to do exactly?" Castle could see that Ms. Westlake wanted to take this man down and honestly, after hearing her case, he was sorely tempted to join her in her crusade.

"The AKC/Eukanuba National Championship is in three weeks and to put it simply, Mr. Castle, I want you to win."

Castle took one last look at the video, watching as Red Rover won the Wesminter Dog Show. His handler beamed at the cameras, and Red himself barked jovially, as if he knew that he was going home a champion. "I'm in."

XXX

Later that day, after receiving a call from Beckett assuring him that everything was going okay on her mission, he began piling together his list of options.

Castle did a little research on the dog show world and came up with a surprising number of facts. While he had the money to pull something off, he certainly didn't have the talent. He needed a team of people to work with him for this.

Reaching into his file cabinet, he retrieved a scarlet folder labeled _Confidential Sources _and leafed through the pages. Over his many years as a novelist, he had acquired quite the list of resources , who he would call if he ever had a question about something.

Many of them were part of the underworld themselves, and asked Castle to keep their names out of everything, just in case they got caught. He had even befriended a few of them and would go out to dinner to chat with them on occasion.

Using a pre-paid dummy phone programmed with the secret numbers of his sources, he dialed the first person he wanted on his team. Taking a leaf from one of his earlier Derrick Storm novels, he put together a group of people with different talents that would balance each other out and give him the best chance of pulling this off.

"Hello?" a voice asked on the other line. In the background, Castle could hear keys clacking frantically and thought he could hear an alarm ringing in the distance.

"Hey, it's me, Castle. I wanted to ask your opinion on something."

The voice sighed, "Really Castle, I'm kinda in the middle of something!" The alarms got louder. "Damn. Stupid alarm system. I thought I disabled it."

Castle pressed his source for an answer, "Come on, Claudia, I could really use your help on something."

On the other line, Claudia Donovan typed a string of code as fast as she could, sending a nasty virus to the alarm system to shut it off. She figured that she had a few minutes before local cops arrived to check out the issue, but she wanted that infernal beeping to stop.

Pressing the enter key, she sent the virus and a second later the alarms shut off. She sighed, shut down her laptop and stowed it in her bag, pulling out a strange-looking gun to replace her hacking equipment. "Fine, I guess I _do_ owe you after you got me out of that tight situation in New York. Give me a couple of hours to finish this job and I'll meet you at the usual location around nine tonight to discuss what you want."

Castle grinned, "Thanks, Claudia. I'll see you there then." He hung up the phone and Claudia tossed her cell phone in her bag, cursing her friend's horrible timing. He _had _to call while she and the rest of the Warehouse team were trying to steal an artifact from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"Man, Artie is gonna kill me when he finds out that I'm leaving," she whined, setting her Tesla to 11 and barging through the side door, where she was to meet up with Steve Jinks to provide an escape plan for Myka and Pete, who were busy outrunning security guards. "Eh, I'll just sneak away during dinner. It's Myka's turn to cook anyway, so I'm sure I won't be the only one absent."

XXX

"Who's next on my list," Castle muttered under his breath, crossing Claudia Donovan's name off the list. There were still three more people he needed, but he was confident that they could help him. "Ah, here we go."

The line rang a good six times before it was picked up. "What do you want?" a female voice snapped irritably.

"Rachel, it's me, Castle."

Rachel Berry, up-and coming star, rolled her eyes on the other end of the line. "Yes, Richard, did you want something?"

"Are you busy tonight? I wanna take you to that brand-new restaurant that just opened on the upper West Side." That was the code they had come up with whenever Castle thought he needed to meet with the young actress.

Rachel had acted in a few local plays, to positive reviews, but was still unknown enough to be able to pull of some of the most elaborate scams he had ever seen. She had hidden away millions of dollars in offshore bank accounts ever since high school, and showed no sign of ever stopping. Rachel had helped him solve a case last year in exchange for access to his high-stakes poker group, which he played with on Saturday nights. He and Beckett had caught a notorious thief and she had ended her night three hundred thousand dollars richer.

"Of course, I'd be glad to meet you. Is there any chance that you could get me into next week's poker game?" As a fantastic actress, Rachel Berry could persuade nearly anybody to do things, and nobody could say no to the attractive young woman.

"Sorry, but after you cleaned house, they kicked me out." He heard a deep sigh come from the other line. Castle didn't want to lose her interest though. "But how does a chance at winning the Westminster Dog Show sound to you?"

"The big leagues," Rachel said. "Count me in. My girlfriend could use a new car, since hers broke down. The usual place then?"

Castle checked his watch. Claudia said she'd meet him the location at nine, which left him only about four hours to come up with a basic plan. "Yep, tonight at nine."

"I look forward to our meeting, Mr. Castle." She hung up abruptly, trying to act nonchalant but she was vibrating in her seat. If Castle was planning what she thought he was planning, she would score some major dough.

"Who was that, babe?" Quinn Fabray asked, walking into their living room carrying a tub of vegan popcorn. She plopped down next to her girlfriend and gave her a kiss.

"Just a friend I'm meeting tonight," Rachel replied, pulling the blonde closer to return the kiss. "We have plenty of time before then."

"You vixen," Quinn replied, taking Rachel by the hand and leading her into their bedroom, their movie date all but forgotten.

XXX

"Two down, two to go," Castle cheered, taking a break to root around the fridge for a snack. His mother was on a cruise with Alexis, leaving him alone in the apartment with plenty of free time. Nobody would bother him.

"Yo, my man, Castle, what's shaking?" Dance music thudded in the background, making it hard for Castle to make out much of anything.

"Kenzi, where are you?"

"Just taking some well-deserved time off to dance a little. Have a few drinks. Unwind, that sort of thing." Castle never was able to find much information on Kenzi, only that she recycled identies like plastic bottles, and was a hell of a thief.

"Who are you casing?"

"Some asshole who decided that it would be fun to steal from a nursing home. It's one thing to steal from a jerk or someone with too much shit on their hands, but from old people? That's just cruel." Kenzi looked around the club, trying to spot her mark. She found him dancing extremely close to a female model, clearly enjoying the contact.

"Do you think you could take a break tonight and meet with me. I have a potential job that could net you a lot of money and fame," Castle said in a sing-song voice. He knew that she wouldn't be able to resist that call.

Sure enough, Kenzi smiled. "Well you know me, man. I'm never one to turn down money. I'll be at the location tonight."

"Be there around nine. I need a group of people that I can trust to be able to pull this off."

"I'm flattered, Castle. You shouldn't trust me, but I'm flattered nonetheless. Oh, my guy is leaving," Kenzi whispered, hanging up on Castle and getting up to follow him. He had the well-endowed model on his elbow and Kenzi figured that they were going back to his place for some fun.

Just as they were about to exit the club, Kenzi stumbled, pretending to be drunk. Her mark caught her just before she fell and steadied her, giving her a lecherous grin. He asked her if she'd be up to a little fun with himself and the model, who he introduced as Ashlee.

"Of course, gorgeous," she slurred, carefully reaching into his pocket to retrieve his wallet. She relieved him of any cash and tucked the money in her purse before following him out. Within the hour she would have enough evidence to get him arrested for fraud.

XXX

"Whew," Castle breathed. He wasn't sure if Kenzi would agree to meet him, but she had and now he was that much closer to bringing his plan to fruition. "Last but most certainly not least."

"Granny's Diner, what can I help you with?"

"Ruby, it's been a long time since we talked," Castle said.

In Storybrooke, Ruby Lucas smiled and motioned to her grandma that she was taking a break. She untied her apron and retreated upstairs to one of the rooms above the diner.

"I was wondering when I would hear from you again, Rick."

"Well, you did help me with that plot twist for my third Derrick Storm novel. It's not every day that you get first-hand information about the supernatural from a werewolf. I have a bit of a favor to ask you, though."

Ruby tilted her head, "What is it?"

Castle quickly explained the plan to her and her eyes got wider with each detail. "You want me as the muscle for your little team? You do realize that I'm nowhere near Manhattan?"

"I could charter a plane for you to get here," Castle persuaded. "Please, Ruby? You do want to bring this guy down, right?"

He heard a low growl from the other line. "Okay, but you have to explain to Granny why she's losing her only source of free labor for a month."

Castle cringed. He knew just how tough Granny could be, and he thanked whatever powers there were that he wasn't in range of her crossbow. "Fine, hand the phone over to her and I'll get it over with. Your plane can be there in about an hour and a half, okay?"

"I'll pack my things," Ruby said happily and Castle could hear her walking back downstairs to hand the phone off. He gulped and prepared to speak with Ruby's grandma.

"What do you want, Castle?" a gruff voice said.

"Hey, Granny. Listen, I need to borrow Ruby for a while…"


End file.
